Kissing the Earth: Finding Ground in a Disconnected World

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

A couple evenings ago I hiked up the nearby mountain, reveling in the wildflowers painting the hill—arrowleaf balsamroot, Indian paintbrush, lupine—in swaths of yellow, red, purple.

Soft breezes, billowing clouds, sun warming my back. A showy grouse, soaring hawks. Blood pumping.

And, yet, the thing was, I just wanted to touch the ground. And, so I did. I sat on a pile of rocks at the top, feeling my body held by Earth. I put my hands in the dirt, splayed wide, held them there.

Sometimes we just need to ground.

The urge and the act to connect, to touch the Earth is something visceral, ancient, healing. We all intuitively know this call—we feel drawn to touch the bark of a towering redwood; press our naked feet into grass, sand, soil; lay splayed out on raw dirt, relaxing into the support of the Earth beneath. We seek solace in digging into rich organic soil with our bare hands in service of a garden.

Whether we hear the call, listen to it, act upon it is a different question. What was once an intrinsic part of a human life has been rendered something different by the modern world—the false quests for comfort and security that plague our disconnected society often obscure these innate calls.

In a search to repair these disconnects, practitioners have introduced the concept of grounding or earthing—quite literally making direct skin contact with the surface of the earth. Touching the earth in this way creates an electrical contact between body and earth, transferring electrons from the earth into your body. These electrons remove the positive charges we carry around, acting as natural antioxidants. Historically, people lived in much more direct relationship with the earth and in direct connection to the ground. In doing so, they naturally grounded themselves. Today we face an Indoor Epidemic¹ with people in developed countries now spending only an hour or two of each day outside. As a result, our bodies build up electrical charges than cannot be dispensed without touching ground.

Studies have shown that grounding brings positive physiological effects including: down-regulating your nervous system, improving heart rate variability, reducing anxiety, and improving thyroid function;² lowering inflammation and improving chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, enhancing immune responses, speeding wound healing, easing stress, and improving sleep, with sustained contact with the Earth yielding sustained benefits.³

This is one way to ground. In common parlance, however, we speak of being down to earth or grounded, and mean to refer to someone who is realistic, practical, unpretentious, with little concern for impressing others. Someone who is grounded has their feet firmly planted on the ground. In spiritual circles, the term takes a slightly different spin—implying a state of being in which someone is present in their body, connected to the earth and capable of equanimity, emotional regulation, clear thinking, and spiritual connection. The opposite might be someone who is scattered, untethered, unclear, overly emotional, anxious.

I had a curious interaction recently. In a conversation with a family member, we spoke of my niece’s first solo trip as a young adult in a program overseas. She has been fully going for it—making friends, traveling, adventuring, climbing mountains, RV-ing it. I am loving watching her and commented that I was excited to see her following in my footsteps. The response? Except she’s more grounded. I breathed. Took the words in. Felt a momentary sting. And, then it dawned on me. The use of the word grounded was meant to describe something more like security-seeking—having a consistent job, doing the more conventional thing, being tethered in a more traditional sense. The practices that I rely on to feel grounded, secure, at peace are entirely unfamiliar to many of my family members, and my way of being—free-spirited, seeking adventure over security, expansion over comfort—are anathema to the culture in which they reside. Yet, in my community of wild people, I am as grounded as any. More importantly, in my own body, I feel grounded, secure, knowing. Of course, I’m not always there, and in those times I am out of balance, I recognize it for what it is and take steps to realign. So, with this knowingness, I let the comment dissipate to the wind, sending it back where it belongs.

And with that, I’ll now return to my present adventure—kicking around the desert southwest in my van with dear friends where we are sharing laughter, seeking adventure, hiking, soaking, bumping into quirky characters, touching the ground, kissing the Earth with our feet. And, guess what? We have no plan, no agenda, no schedule. Funny how that feels both freeing and grounding.

What is your experience grounding through connection to the Earth? How does it make you feel? What doors does it open? Please share in the comments!

xo Wendy

1. Shonstrom, Erik. (2017) The Indoor Epidemic: How Parents, Teachers, and Kids Can Start an Outdoor Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

2. Fischer, Kristen. (May 3, 2024) Grounding: Techniques and Benefits. WebMD.com.

3. Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Brown R. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. J Inflamm Res. 2015 Mar 24;8:83-96.